My wife wants a notebook for her work, so I'm toying with the idea of giving her my old on and getting his... I'm currently using a HP N3390 w. a 650mhz P3 and 256MB of SDRAM. Here is what I'm looking at getting:

hp pavilion ze5170 notebook
$2099 - $150 in rebates.
2.0Ghz P4, 40GB, 256mb, etc etc

Link

I will be using it for ripping and encoding CD's and "lite" web design. Any comments? Opinions? Suggestions?

Well, it's not the notebook I would buy. These are the downsides I see looking at it's specs:

It has a desktop P4 which runs hotter and lacks the battery optimizations of the mobile P4.

The Radeon graphics chip is a generation behind the Radeon 7500 and GeForce 4go chips that are in most newer machines.

I consider a 15" XGA screen to be an absolute waste on a laptop. You pay the price of a larger machine and worse battery life while not gaining any additional resolution. Most people find XGA to be comfortable on a 14" or even 12" screen. For a 15" screen SXGA+ or UXGA are more appropriate resolutions, IMO.

I'd suggest looking at the Dell 8200 or Compaq 2800. The Dell is an "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of machine. It's big and has a cheap feeling plastic case but it is very flexible with 2 bays that let you use a combination of a second battery and/or optical drives. If you are going to be doing a lot of ripping and burning you may appreciate having two internal optical drives.

The Compaq 2800 is much lighter, thinner and sexier than the Dell. But it only has one modular bay and lacks legacy ports and FireWire (but it does have USB 2).

-Dylan

Get a Dell 8x00 only if you want a desktop replacement laptop. If you want to travel with it then it's too heavy. I've got a 8000 with two batteries and it's incredibly heavy. Very uncomfortable to carry around unless you've got a very padded bag.

- Trevor

Any of the choices here seem like overkill to me for what you want to do. I'd personally sacrifice a bit of encoding speed for a laptop with much less weight. Laptops with the ultra low voltage PIII chips can hit up to 7 hours of battery life, usually can still play DVDs and such on the go, offer a much smaller form factor when lugging it around, and allow for better "laptops" when sitting somewhere on a wireless network.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm considering Dell now too...

I guess I'm mainly looking for a desktop replacement. I take my notebook with me to work everyday because I work at a differant office each day. I only carry it to and from the car. I basically have no home machine. I also would like s-video out.

Looking at the two Dells offered here I can't figure out why they want nearly $500 more for the middle model... seems to have the newer generation of nVidea chip with more video ram. Is that it?

Go to the customize it screens and you'll see how much things cost. In this case you are paying for the higher res screen, more memory, better graphics chip and the 3 year warranty.

-Dylan

Ever considered an Apple Powerbook G4? Very sexy, not too heavy, DVD/CD/CDRW, many video output options (including S-Video built-in), Firewire, USB, Ethernet, Modem, nice 802.11 option, etc. The only drawbacks are if you need Windows, the LCD resolution could be better (IMO), and, possibly, the price.

I sure wish someone would make PC hardware that is as elegant as Apple's. I'm willing to pay the price premium but I want to run Windows natively.

-Dylan

I want one of these two

http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=P2

http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=P1

I hate to sound like Apple's recent commercials but what do you do on a laptop that has to be done under Windows?

With Jaguar (Mac OS 10.2) coming soon, it gets rid of the last need I have of a windows laptop since it supports MS PPTP. (VPN)

I realised when Mac OS X came out, I had no reason beyond games to use a PC running Windows. And slowly I am making that come true.

Well, honestly, I think a decent desktop replacement laptop can be had for $1300 after rebates. Costco has some-hp-model-number with 30 gigs, a 14 inch screen, CDR/DVD drive... No, it doesn't have the facy video card, but will you use your fancy video card? If you want a gaming experience, buy a real desktop... (Though, the one feature I wish I had was the ability to use the LCD and an external monitor together while displaying different stuff on each).

Think about what the $500 gets you before you decide you need to spend it... Prices have come down...

Matthew

> I sure wish someone would make PC hardware that is as elegant as Apple's.

The closest you'll get is Sony.

Have you seen http://homepage.mac.com/robthedude/PiePants/ ?

My mother in law has a Cosco membership... and I did a commercial for them when I was 15 hehe, wonder if that'll get me any favors? ha!

Fuji makes some sexy notebooks too. I wonder how well built they are. I've never seen one in person. The E-Series look nice.

Is it common for notebooks to have regular P4's opposed to Mobile ones?

Off to go look at IBM and Sony... (gotta see them all!)

Mmmm - Costco! Definitely the best place to go (at least in the UK) for party food and drinks. Just saved about £70 stocking up for next weekend - that's about a 25% saving over high street stores!

Their prices on electrical/coputer gear don't seem as competitive, though - in some cases they are more expensive than the high street, and in all cases I could get cheaper/better kit from dabs.com

I use Costco all the time for computer hardware. It may not be the cheapest, but it is by far the best costumer service I have ever seen. I had a Maxtor 8GB HD for over 2 years, when it died on me. I took it back to Costco, without a receipt, and they refused to exchange it. They insisted on giving me a full refund! I ended up taking the cash and buying a 40GB and still had change left over! Ever since then, I have given Costco a very good chance at my business. I have heard similar stories from friends aswell. The only downside is that they have limited selection.

I work for a laptop co here in NZ, Portables Plus....
I Mainly work as a Wireless Data engineer, but do service notebooks as well.....

As a Desktop Replacement I'd definatly recommend the following.......I consider this the Ultimate in notebooks, havent seen anything come close to these features....

Toshiba Satellite 5100 series, 5105-S702
Equipped with a Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor - M4 1.80GHz , 512MB PC2100 DDR SDRAM, 512KB Level 2 Cache integrated on die
400MHz Front Side Bus (FSB) clock speed
Memory
Toshiba Personal Theatre 15" UXGA active matrix display (1600 X 1200),
NVIDIA® GeForce4™ 440 Go graphics controller with 64MB DDR VRAM,
DVD/CD-RW multifunction drive,
60GB1 Hard drive,
Yamaha Sound System featuring harman/kardon® Stereo, Speakers with subwoofer,
Dolby AC3 digital port,
i.Link™(IEEE 1394) port,
1 SmartMedia™ slot
1 SD card memory slot
10/100 Ethernet, V.90/56K modem,
Wi-Fi™ (802.11b),
Bluetooth module,
cPad™ transparent touchpad, full function remote control, Windows XP Professional.

I honestly must say, the subwoofer sounds pretty descent...
also the Integrated customizable LCD in the touchpad just blew me away ...

The 2.4GHz CPU versions have been released in Japan, soon to be released worldwide, these also feature removable usable keyboards, n 16" screen options.

cheers,
JaBZ

How much for this bad boy?